Turkey Media Roundup (February 2)

[This is a roundup of news articles and other materials circulating on Turkey and reflects a wide variety of opinions. It does not reflect the views of the Turkey Page Editors or of Jadaliyya. You may send your own recommendations for inclusion in each week`s roundup to turkey@jadaliyya.com by Sunday night of every week.]

English

Violence in the Southeast

Ambulances Halted as Turkey Besieges Kurdish Town Frederike Geerdink describes the efforts by lawyers to secure ECHR support for Turkish citizens in Cizre denied access to ambulances. The ECHR, however, maintains that Turkish courts have precedence.

Security Problem Deepens with Ambulance Crisis in Turkey (1) - (2) Murat Yetkin examines how a number of parties, including President Erdoğan, members of the HDP, and international rights groups, have responded to claims that ambulances are being prevented from retrieving and treating injured and dying people in Cizre.

Turkey’s ‘Deep State’ Terror Squads: The ‘Spycops’ Licensed to Kill A blog correspondent visits the often-unknown history of JİTEM, a secret network of spycops operating as the main strand of Turkey`s "deep state," which has been involved in the extrajudicial killing, disappearance, arrest, and torture of Kurds, leftists, and anyone threatening the interests of the state.

Kurds in Turkey: Caught in the Crossfire David Lepeska profiles a number of Kurds living in the war-torn regions of the southeast who have lost family members to the protracted violence, and he meditates on the prospects for a return to peace talks.

It is OK to Make a Fool of Us… Markar Esayan writes that “the PKK and HDP betrayed the Kurds,” while the AKP has always offered and continues to offer peace to the Kurds.

Foreign Policy

The PYD and a Tangled Web Evaluating the degree to which the PYD can be considered part of the “opposition” to Assad, Ali Yurttagül suggests the organization is primarily self-interested but also wholly comfortable standing “elbow to elbow” with dictatorial regimes.

Meeting with Joe Biden Sheepishly Ali Murat Yel uses a (rather lengthy) metaphor about anthropologists and the inclusion of “native voice” to criticize Joe Biden, Noam Chomsky, and Slavoj Zizek of having “little will to learn the facts” about Turkey.

Are We at War or Not? Discussing the recent deaths of Turkish nationalists fighting alongside Türkmen militants on the basis of “ethnic affinity,” Nuray Mert suggests that it is very strange for people of one country to fight in another country’s civil war.

Domestic Politics

Turkey’s Opposition is Not Up to the Task Suat Kınıklıoğlu laments the lack of “strategic thinking” on display in the CHP and MHP, pointing out that the MHP, for example, “prides itself” on not using polling.

Is Turkey at War With the “Islamic State”? Reviewing ISIS attacks in Turkey, Halil Karaveli concludes that the “ideological discourse of the Turkish regime has not changed” making it difficult for the government to effectively break up ISIS networks in the country.

The PKK and HDP`s Path Writing for Daily Sabah Markar Esayan argues that the AKP is “practically . . .the biggest pro-Kurdish party in Turkey,” which the PKK (and HDP) are unwilling to accept. Additionally, the CHP and the “secularist Turkish business elite” are “compatible with the PKK`s Stalinist ideology.”

Erdoğan Asks Davutoğlu to Go to Referendum Murat Yetkin explores rumors that the AKP might force the country into yet another election in order to secure the presidential system that Erdoğan has been trying to consolidate.

We Will Draw That Map, Get It through Your Head (1) - (2) According to Yeni Şafak editor-in-chief İbrahim Karagül, domestic and international parties are “trying to push Turkey outside the global system and declare it the enemy and turn it into a target” because of Turkey’s “miraculous” economic ascendancy.

Islam should Speak for the New Constitution Ergün Yıldırım encourages political leaders to imbue the new constitution with Islamic values and doctrines in order to perpetuate Turkey’s role as a beacon for other Islamic countries.

Media`s Hypocrisy When Covering Terror After criticizing media outlets like Cumhuriyet and T24 for showing pictures of bombing victims and treating PKK and ISIS differentially, İbrahim Altay announces the formation of a group called “the Media Association” which will “aim to bring changes to digital media legislation.”

How Fake News Helps AKP Propaganda Mustafa Akyol writes about the pro-AKP narrative that powerful media outlets have promoted, and discusses how it helps the AKP keep its political domination intact.

Academics Face Death Threats over Turkey Petition Jack Higgins describes the situation of academics who not only have fear of investigation and arrest by government over peace petition, but also receive hate emails/calls, physical and verbal attacks, and even death threats, and are further subject to lynching and defamation campaigns.

Cover Story Elif Batuman gives a personal history of her experience living in Turkey as a woman who does not wear a headscarf and the way in which wearing (or not wearing one) affected her social interactions.

Turkish

Violence in the Southeast

Cenevre`de Suriye hendeği With Turkey aligned increasingly with Saudi Arabia and the anti-Assad groups, Oral Çalışlar suggests the PKK is considering how close it should move toward the Russia-Iran-Damascus alliance—and how far it can do so without angering the US.

Cizre, bizi affetme! Nurcan Baysal writes about the ongoing "ambulance crisis" in Cizre, where injured Kurdish civilians are left to die in a demolished basement with no food, clean water, and medicine.

Vahşet bodrumu! Writing about the "barbarity basement" in Cizre, where injured civilians are trapped and denied ambulance services, Hasan Cemal accuses the AKP government and President Erdogan of suspending the rule of law, de facto invalidating the Constitution, and committing crimes against humanity.

HDP`de netlik ayarı Writing about the recent HDP Party Congress, İrfan Aktan asserts that the HDP and its leadership have buckled down on their commitments to a politics of peace and reconciliation in spite of the ruling party’s insistence on war.

Ruh üşümesi Bircan Değirmenci, an official who works for Diyarbakır Municipality, writes about the banality of death and dying in Sur district and elsewhere, concluding, “every day I contine to slowly die, just like everyone who was thought to live on these lands.”

"Anlayış" sağlıksız Dr. Eriş Bilaloğlu, founder of the Ankara Chamber of Medicine, compares the problems in medical treatment that Diyarbakır faced in 1998—when it was under emergency rule and martial law—with the problems facing Diyarbakır in the same domain in 2016.

AKP’nin Cenevre’deki Pirus zaferi Commenting on the exclusion of PYD from the Geneva talks due to Turkey`s efforts to leave the group out of the Talks, Erdogan Aydin comments that neither bringing peace to Syria nor strategizing against ISIS can be possible without PYD.

Suriye`de `Kürtsüz çözüm` hayali Writing about Turkey’s stipulations for the Geneva talks about the fate of Syria, Yücel Özdemir marvels at the fact that the PYD was excluded while the Islamist & Salafist coalition Ahrar ash-Sham was included.

CHP`li arkadaşımla hasbıhal...Oral Çalışlar accepts that the CHP has grown more democratic internally, but he questions whether the party has fully shed its nationalist, majoritarian traditions.

Arınç ve benzerlerinin şansı var mı? Ruşen Çakır observes that critics of Erdogan within the AKP today have far less room to maneuver than they did in their earlier, “reformist” years when their critiques were directed towards Necmettin Erbakan.

Persecution of Journalists and Academics

Rakamlarla otoriter Türkiye Umut Özkırımlı analyzes Turkey`s records on human rights, media rights and freedoms, free speech, social justice, and rule of law, which all dangerously bring Turkey very close to be an authoritarian state.

Oyun planı Seyfi Öngider argues that the government’s harsh line against Academics For Peace is part of its larger strategy to polarize Turkish society and push opposition parties below the 10% threshhold.

Suçlanan akademisyenler ve barışı kazanmak Comparing the persecution of Academics For Peace now with the persecutions of pacifist groups in past decades, Murat Özveri concludes that “people changed, times changed, but the antagonistic logic towards peace didn’t change.”

Tecavüzün kıymetli haber değeri Esra Arsan discusses the differential value judgments made in the Turkish media’s nonstop reporting on the rape of a girl in a posh neighborhood of Istanbul with the complete lack of reporting on the dozens of people being killed by the state in Cizre and other provinces in the southeast.

"Adalet" sayın hakim! LGBT activist Kemal Ördek, who survived being raped in their home only to be harassed by the police, writes an open letter to the judge who will rule in their case against their assailants, asking why trans people and sex workers never receive justice even in the courts.

Bir hastalık olarak erkeklik Writing in the wake of a rape in the posh Istanbul neighborhood around Bağdat Avenue, Burcu Karakaş argues that the disease that compels men to rape women is the disease of masculinity.

`Küçük Kara Balık` ve Leyla Zana Drawing on a thesis by Arzu Yılmaz, Ayşe Hür presents a long-form piece discussing the career of Leyla Zana, one of the most prominent campaigners for Kurdish rights of the past thirty years.